RUSTOM (U/A)
Director: Tinu Suresh Desai
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Ileana D’Cruz, Esha Gupta, Arjan Bajwa, Sachin Khedekar, Kumud Mishra
Running time: 151 minutes
At one point of time during the court procedural that forms the core of Rustom, Jamnabai — the trusted maid at the house of naval commander Rustom Pavri (Akshay Kumar) — recounts the happenings of the morning when Pavri discovered that his wife Cynthia (Ileana D’Cruz) was having an affair with his friend Vikram (Arjan Bajwa). “Saab gusse mein thhe aur woh whisky pee rahey thhe,” she says. “Tumhein kaise pataa woh whisky thi?” asks the prosecution. “Kyunki main kabhi kabhi chupke se wahan se pee leti hoon,” whispers Jamnabai with a wink, even as the court erupts.
Rustom, his face expressionless and his demeanour uncompromising all this while, steals a sideways glance at her and manages a half smirk, even as his face mirrors the pain he feels with his private life being thrown open for public consumption. Such moments — all courtesy an Akshay at the top of his game — make the two-and-a-half-hour trudge called Rustom worth a watch. Well, almost.
Yes, if only Rustom was half as good as its leading man. Akshay, who has built quite a reputation nailing quasi-real characters — there’s already been Airlift this year —delivers a performance as spotless as his navy whites, his lines hitting home as effectively as his body language. Unflinching patriot to betrayed husband to suspected murderer to public hero — Akshay is spot-on in each of the myriad facets that make up Rustom the man. Yet, he isn’t good enough to make Rustom the film a better watch than what it turns out to be.
Unintentionally hilarious to the point of almost degenerating into a spoof, half-baked for the most part and saddled with too many loose ends for it to be called a thriller, Rustom belongs to that category of films that promise a lot in the two-minute trailer but deliver much less in the two-hour film. Rustom manages the seemingly impossible task of taking real life — it’s based primarily on the K.M. Nanavati case of 1959 (see box, right) — and making it so far-fetched that even seasoned Bollywood watchers are sure to shake their heads in disbelief at some point.
The premise — a perfect plot for 70mm with its elements of love, betrayal, intrigue and finally cold-blooded murder — unfolds over a period of 30 days, in the month of April-May 1959. Rustom, an officer decorated countless times for his honesty and integrity, returns early from his six months on sea to discover Cynthia having an affair with his friend Vikram Makhija, a man known to be a Casanova. Rustom picks up a pistol from his command station, drives down to Vikram’s house, pumps three bullets into his heart and then walks into a police station to surrender. Over the next few days, the case becomes a public spectacle, as the “crime of passion” is splashed in the newspapers and the middle-class rallies in support of Rustom. All this while, a defence secret — with Rustom in the middle — unfolds, even as the film plays out as a courtroom drama.
Debutant director Tinu Suresh Desai has obviously learnt little from doing assistant director duties on Akshay-Neeraj Pandey films like Special 26 and Baby, failing largely in crafting an edge-of-the-seat thriller out of the material with such potential that he has in his hands. Rustom is intriguing, but falls short of being engaging. Desai does put in some nice touches from the real story — like how towels were sold outside court in the Nanavati case because the victim Prem Ahuja was found dead draped in only a towel, and how touts sold ‘space’ in the courtroom to the public — but there is none of the build-up to justify Rustom’s journey from being a suspected criminal to a national hero. From screaming women holding up placards — “I love you Rustom” to “I want your baby, Rustom!” — outside court to the jury’s turnaround even with solid evidence staring them in the face.
Instead, Desai inexplicably tries to cull out some lighter moments from the film, but that only results in Rustom turning into an accidental comedy. For instance, Russi Karanjia, the editor of the tabloid Blitz, who was responsible for mobilising mass support for Nanavati, is reduced to a caricature here. Lawyer Khangani (Sachin Khedekar), modelled on Ram Jethmalani who led the prosecution in the Nanavati case, is yet another seemingly serious character that’s primarily mined for laughs here.
But none as bad as Esha Gupta’s Preeti Makhija, determined to pull out all the stops to nail Rustom for her brother’s death. With in-your-face cleavage, permanent red lips and a stock expression that stops somewhere between a smirk and an eye-roll, Esha is so badly miscast that even a wooden Ileana — vacuous look and vague accent in almost every scene — comes off as a seasoned performer.
And if Esha’s red clips don’t hurt your eyes, the tacky sets definitely will. If Special 26 recreated the 1980s so well — right down to the Dum Dum airport back then — the art design department of Rustom seems to have missed the brief by quite a bit. Orange skies in the middle of the day… really?!
In the end, it’s only Akshay Kumar who stands tall as the rest of Rustom crumbles all around him. This is an actor who deserved a better film. As did this intriguing crime of passion.
My 30-word review of Rustom is...
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